


From the Mixed-Up Files of Lord Voldemort

by anno_Hreog



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Humor, M/M, Mpreg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-27
Updated: 2013-08-27
Packaged: 2017-12-24 19:50:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/943967
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anno_Hreog/pseuds/anno_Hreog
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was to everyone’s great surprise when, at the end of the war, amongst the pile of mostly useless filched philtres, Snape discovered Lord Voldemort's notes on how to reverse lycanthropy.</p><p>Remus goes along with it, for the sake of science. Sirius is more suspicious. Sadly, the opinions of a teenage portrait are easily ignored.</p><p> </p><p> </p><p>[Written in 2005 before <i>The Halfblood Prince</i> came out. Sirius is dead, but Remus and Snape are not was our canon. And also Dumbledore made it out alive, too. A Snapily-ever-after fic from ye olden days.]</p>
            </blockquote>





	From the Mixed-Up Files of Lord Voldemort

Draco Malfoy was absolutely the worst spy in existence. 

During the war, the Order soon learned not to assign him to any highly volatile missions. They couldn’t trust him to be discreet, or quiet, or very subtle. In the end, Snape charged him with perfunctory assignments. The younger Malfoy ended up smuggling extra potions experiments from the Death Eater laboratories. Snape could have done it himself. But it made the boy feel useful, kept him out of harm’s way – and more importantly out of _his_ way - and besides, Snape had more important things to do.

So it was to everyone’s great surprise when, at the end of the war, amongst the pile of mostly useless filched philtres – potions to sprout ornamental turnips out of ones ears or to turn one’s chest hair purple and green – Snape discovered notes on how to reverse lycanthropy.

*

Lupin found a portrait of a young Sirius Black in the attic in 12 Grimmauld Place, and after dusting and polishing the frame – with a lot of exaggerated sneezes from Sirius – he hung it in a room he liked to call his study. Though, this younger, fifteen-year old Sirius was chatty and never seemed to shut up. Lupin thought how he used to love listening to James and Sirius ramble on in their clever, cynical way when they were all at school. He didn’t remember it being quite so annoying. Sirius also kept flicking back his hair in what seemed an affected fashion, much too often. But he was still Sirius, good friend of his youth, much mourned and missed. Except when he was being a nosy gossip.

“So, going to see greasy little Snivellus, then?”

Lupin shrugged on his brown cardigan and peered in the mirror next to Sirius’s portrait. His mustache was getting a bit long. He nodded absently at Sirius. “Mmm hmm.” Maybe he should trim it.

“Well, you look good enough for the likes of him,” portrait Sirius huffed. “What’s with that ridiculous mustache anyway?”

“You don’t like it?” Lupin asked. Sirius did have an excellent eye for rakish fashion back at Hogwarts. Lupin really didn’t know what was stylish. His brown cardigan seemed dumpy now. 

“If you’re going to grow a beard, then grow a beard. It’ll make you look manly and cover up a weak chin. That mustache is just insipid. It’s like a big fat caterpillar crawled on your lip and died.”

“Thank you, Sirius,” Lupin said dryly, and slipped out of his brown cardigan. The other cardigan he’d laid out on the armchair was brown, too. But it had elbow patches. Those were quite snazzy, weren’t they?

“And this one’s so different, Moons?” Sirius cocked an eyebrow in that supercilious Black manner that he’d perfected, knowing with a touch of rogue. 

Lupin looked down at his cardigan. Maybe he had time to shave. He ran for the washroom.

“Why’re you so keen on how you look, anyway?” Sirius shouted after him.

*

Snape absolutely did _not_ want another lemon drop. He’d rather have a good biscuit. But then, if he wanted a nice tea in peace, he’d be sitting with Minerva. Albus, for all his jovial twinkling eyes, meant business.

“Yes, thank you, Headmaster,” Snape said, grudgingly accepting the sweet. It was too sour this last batch.

“Now, now, Severus, it’s Albus,” Dumbledore said and picked out a piece for himself. “Now, where were we?”

“You wanted me to do something?” Snape dreaded what it might be this time. Teaching impertinent brats at Hogwarts, letting Potter into his Advanced Potions class, risking his life spying for the Order, helping Hagrid prune the pumpkin patch. He’d paid for his crimes long enough. Potter was enough atonement for two teachers’ lifetimes.

“Do I always make you do unbearable things, Severus?” Dumbledore looked at him gravely from under his half-moon spectacles, and Snape stared back at him. For a few quiet minutes, it was a battle of wills, and not blinking. Then the lemon drop cracked and Snape bit into his tongue. The sourness didn’t help.

“Ow!” Snape winced. And Dumbledore tut-tutted sympathetically. 

“Now, you have to let it sit. It’s the best way,” Dumbledore told him, quite seriously. Snape glared at him.

“What do you want me to do?”

Dumbledore sighed. “It’s really up to you, Severus. But you _are_ the best Potions master I know and - ”

Snape didn’t like the sound of this. Dumbledore didn’t butter up someone for nothing. 

“ – and it’s such a delicate case. The notes were quite complicated and it’s an experimental project –” 

“What IS it?” Snape tried to keep his voice level. Dumbledore smiled and offered him another sweet, but Snape steeled his resolve and shook his head.

Dumbledore sighed. “It’s the reversal cure for lycanthropy you found –”

“Young Malfoy found,” Snape interrupted. 

“That Draco found, yes. I was hoping you’d work with Remus in perfecting it. Remus has volunteered –”

“Oh, that’s _noble_ of him,” Snape sneered. “And so selfless. After all, what does he get? A cure. Not that he’d stop being a worthless animal…” Snape mumbled the last part under his breath. 

Dumbledore frowned and sighed again. “Well, if that’s how you feel about it, Severus, I can’t force you to do anything you don’t want to do. I wonder if young Malfoy would –”

“Draco?” Snape growled. “That clumsy, incompetent –”

“He has excellent marks in Potions, I understand – ”

Snape sneered at the mention of Malfoy’s Potions marks. “That’s only because Malfoy senior would have-” He stopped there. Dumbledore didn’t have to know the exact details of how he awarded certain grades. Even if he had an inkling, it wasn’t the same as a written confession, was it?

“What was that, Severus?” Dumbledore raised his eyebrows politely. 

“Nothing. Absolutely nothing,” Snape grumbled and slunk down in his armchair. “I’ll work with the bloody wolf.”

Dumbledore smiled in satisfaction and offered him the tin of sweets again. “Lemon drop?”

Snape rolled his eyes and picked another revolting yellow piece. Why bother protesting?

*

Hogwarts was too nosy.

The potion itself was fine. Snape found it an intricate brewing process, and the hints of “new life” in adding the essence of asphodel was a stroke of genius. The application of it was not his method of choice. And the staff were curious about the new breakthrough in Potions, straight from the corrupt experiments of the Dark Lord. They requested an open lab.

“So, are you sure about this?” Lupin’s voice was muffled. He didn’t sound too nervous, but well, that was Lupin. No sense of shame. Snape didn’t know where to look, but that would be a problem since he was _inserting the potion_.

“That we’re taking an _experiment_ and using _human_ test subjects, at You-Know-Who’s word –” Mcgonagall sniffed in disapproval. Snape didn’t see what she was so upset about. She wasn’t the one with her hands on Lupin’s bare bottom in the middle of the Hogwarts Potions classroom.

“I volunteered, Minerva,” Lupin was saying. Snape wished the wolf would just shut up. He was nervous enough without having to attach a voice and a person to this arse. This was research. This was science. He wasn’t mesmerized by the sight of a half naked Lupin, laid on his stomach with a cushion under his groin. Snape was only waiting for the Potion to heat up to exactly 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. 

“This is quite quite fascinating,” Flitwick squeaked from his tiny levitating armchair. “And you say the notes on the Potion suggest a ‘renascence of _human_ life’ from within the lycanthrope? 

“And it’s not lethal?” Minerva was staring down at him with a stern look. It wasn’t as if Snape _wanted_ to do this. Nor was he planning on offing the werewolf in plain sight of public by sticking a vial in his arse. Did he ask for this? Oh, no!

“The notes were quite ambiguous, but Potions notes are always more suggestive than accurate,” Snape muttered.

“Like poetry, wouldn’t you say, Severus?” Dumbledore added mildly. He was enjoying himself, Snape was sure of it.

“Draco! Prepare the subject,” Snape growled and turned to stare at the potion.

“Why do I have to do it?” the younger Malfoy squeaked. He was starting to sound like Flitwick. 

“Because you’re my assistant –” you bloody fop, is what he wanted to say. And Snape was sure he wasn’t going to do it himself.

“But the notes say it has to be the same person whose _you know_ … we use later… and…” 

Draco was stuttering like that idiot Quirrel used to. Goodness, he was doing a repertoire of all the Hogwarts staff. “and I’m _NOT_ doing that. You can’t make me.” Whiny again.

“You are in charge of the entire procedure, Severus,” Dumbledore said, fishing in his pockets for a tin of sweets. Not those vile drops again. 

Snape paled at the idea, and turned to face half the staff of Hogwarts staring at him expectantly, and worthless Draco pouting in what the brat probably thought was defiance.

“Fine! I’ll do it.” 

“Why, thank you, Severus. Gracious as always,” Lupin mumbled from the table. Snape wondered if he could gag him.

He poured a third of the potion into a shallow earthenware bowl and dipped two fingers in the warm liquid. His back to the rest of the crowd, Snape bided his time, wafting his fingers and coated them generously in it. The unguent yellow oozed off the tips of his fingers and Snape shivered. This was so unseemly, so disgusting. Why couldn’t Draco do this? He seemed a pervert enough in his private shenanigans. Well, Snape would make sure _everyone_ involved would suffer as much as he did.

“Draco,” Snape barked. “I’ll need help.”

“You do it.” Draco backed off a step.

“My fingers are slick with the potion, you idiot boy.” Snape was close to throwing the whole vial of potion at his stupid yellow head. “Or maybe Filius can –”

“No, no!” Flitwick squeaked in alarm. “Go on, now, young Malfoy, be a good assistant.”

Draco scowled but reached over and gingerly put his fingers on Lupin’s bare arse. Snape choked, and felt his entire face on fire. He was a scientist, and this was for science, and bloody Dumbledore twisting his words, and … oh, that little pink hole was winking at him. Oh, no. 

“Well, _Professor_?” Draco had more than his usual pitch of petulance in his voice.

Snape swallowed hard – horrible image, horrible! – and stepped forward. His index finger slowly traced the rim – he had to do this, this was indecent, this was research, this was clinical, he couldn’t breathe – and with all the resolve and strength of purpose that helped him close his mind to the Dark Lord, he held his breath and _rubbed_.

Lupin drew in a sharp breath, and Snape looked up to see every pair of eyes transfixed on his fingers smoothing potion in circles around that tiny hole. 

He had to do this. 

Snape half closed his eyes, but not completely - he had to know what he was doing – and slowly pressed his index finger into the hole, lightly stretching from the inside. Tight and warm – and there was no way he was going to keep doing this – and unbelievably there was room for another finger. Snape remembered to breathe, but it felt like the whole room was holding their collective breath, as his fingers pushed in, millimeter at a time, circling and twisting, as joint after joint was sucked – it couldn’t be him pushing, that perverse little hole was doing it – his fingers in, right up to the knuckle. He kept up the slow rhythm, almost soothing if it weren’t so tight, and he curled his fingers to rub from inside that tight, tight grip, when Lupin moaned. A low, deep, moan that made him shiver down to the base of his spine. Lupin wasn’t turning into a werewolf now, was he?

“Professor, the potion,” Draco, his worthless assistant, was at his side with the vial. He nodded, and Draco trickled the potion along his fingers, and they all watched, fascinated as the golden liquid trailed down his fingers, and seeped into that now considerably stretched out hole, and Snape had to remember to keep twisting and scissoring in little circles around and around, inside that hot grip. And it was hard to forget as Lupin – indecent animal – kept moaning and groaning and wriggling under his hands.

“Keep still, you mangy werewolf,” Snape snapped.

“Right there, Severus, right there, oh yes… ” Lupin was gasping now. The potion seemed to take effect quite quickly. Lupin was not so discreetly rubbing himself against the cushion tucked under his groin, humping it, as a matter of fact. Then as Snape curled his fingers and pressed down inside, one more time, as Draco poured the last drop of potion into his arse, the blasted werewolf half-lifted himself off the table, back arched, and shouted –shouted, the stupid animal – “Severus!” before he shivered and dropped back down.

“Well,” Dumbledore said cheerfully. “Best for all, the next session be held privately, wouldn’t you agree?”

*

“Well, you look awfully cheerful,” Sirius said from his portrait. 

Lupin had practically skipped into the room and was now setting out his tea things and humming as he searched for his reading glasses.

“Mmm hmmm.”

“He didn’t do anything nasty, did he? The greasy git,” Sirius scowled.

“Mmm-mmm.”

“You never talk to me, anymore.”

Lupin looked up, but he couldn’t stop grinning. “I’m so sorry, Sirius. I’m looking for my glasses.”

“They’re behind that plaster bust of Plato.”

“Why, so they are. Thank you.”

“Remus, you’re scaring me,” portrait Sirius huffed as he watched Lupin pick out Plato’s _Symposium_ and placed his squarish, horn rimmed glasses on his nose. The little kettle whistled and Lupin pulled up an armchair. Even from the portrait, Sirius could see him wince as he eased himself into it.

“Fell on your bum, did you?”

“Something like that, yes.”

*

The werewolf wanted to do it in the bedroom.

“But there’s a mattress, and it would be so much more comfortable.”

For him, maybe. Snape didn’t want those smells and those moans anywhere near a bedroom. “You’ll get potions on the bed.”

“I can change the sheets,” Lupin said quickly.

Snape would bend to Dumbledore’s wily will, but one mangy werewolf would not get the best of him.

“Absolutely not!” He had to put his foot down. “We will conduct this in a professional manner, however distasteful it is to both of us personally –” the werewolf was… was he pouting? “And it will be in your _study_. And that is that.” 

Lupin sighed. “Well, if you insist, Severus.”

He felt damn proud of holding his own. That is, until he discovered Sirius Black was hanging in the study.

*

“That’s it, Severus,” Lupin said calmly. 

Well, calmly for a man crouched over an ottoman with his trousers around his knees. After the first public session at Hogwarts, Lupin seemed quite cheerful and oblivious to the embarrassing situation they found themselves in. Except for a random hitch in his voice, when Snape _accidentally_ poked too deep. Well, good for him. Snape fumed inside. Lupin wasn’t the one with his fingers in another man’s arse.

“This is dis _gusting_! Get away from him, you filthy, greasy git!” a younger, teenaged Sirius Black shouted from his portrait.

“Sirius, this is for that treatment I tol-”

“Excuses! Disgusting Death Eater pervert, get your stinking hands –”

“It’s to cure my lycanthropy and it’s not as if he’s _enjoying_ -”

“Oh, he’s enjoying it, and taking advantage of your condition, I can tell from that leer on his ugly mug – ”

“Ow!” Lupin yelped. Snape had poked a bit too hard.

“Would the two of you just, SHUT UP?” Snape almost yelled. Almost. “I’m trying to concentrate –”

“Trying to concentrate?” Sirius sneered. “Is that what you ass bandits call it –”

“Sirius?” Lupin called weakly from the ottoman.

“Yes, Remus? Do you want me to curse him? I think I can still do magic if I try. I can levitate him out the window. I can – ”

“Sirius. Do shut up.”

*

And the stupid werewolf went on pretending it was nothing more than a perfunctory eye exam, even as he occasionally moaned and groaned and humped the ottoman while Snape was trying so hard to remain professional. And after the first couple of sessions, Snape noticed it was re-upholstered in a deep, rich red, and that Lupin always covered that ottoman with two clean towels before they started.

Well, good for him. Being so practical and cheerful about it all. It was embarrassing and degrading, and of _course_ , Snape had to do it, just like he had to be the butt of jokes at school, and risk his life and limb spying for Dumbledore. He always had to do the dirty work. No rewards, just the work.

And he had to sit back and listen as Sirius Black – he never got any calmer – poured abuse down his innocent head, as that stupidly oblivious werewolf went and made an indecent display of himself as he dis-robed for his session. Never completely mind you.

He’d offer Snape tea and chocolate covered biscuits – Snape was too used to Dumbledore to refuse refreshments by now – and while Snape was trying not to choke, he unbuttoned – _plip!_ \- slowly unzipped his fly – wiggling his fingers a bit for extra show – and _shimmied_ out of his trousers. Then he’d walk around in his snug white underpants peeking out from under his shirttails, and sashay around the room to pour Snape some more tea. And he kept his brown cardigan on. It had elbow-patches on them. Snape felt he was going mad. Bare legs walking about in complete nonchalance, offering him tea and biscuits. He desperately clutched his heavy black robes for reassurance.

“Stop gawking at him, you pervert!” Sirius Black yelled from his portrait frame. 

Snape wished he could burn it. He’d complained first to Lupin, who only nodded sympathetically, but had said, “It’s his house, too, Severus.” Then to Dumbledore, who smiled over his half-moon glasses and said it would keep things interes – er – objective. And of course the old coot’s eyes were twinkling.

When he finished his tea, Lupin tucked his thumbs under the waistband of his underpants and drew them down. He’d kept both trousers and underpants around his ankles, until after the third session, when Snape fumbled with the vial and spilled potion on them. He took them off after that.

After carefully setting away the tea tray – Snape tried not to stare at the heavy cock bobbing in its nest of crinkly brown hair – he folded two heavy towels over the ottoman and crouched over it.

“Ready when you are, Severus!” he’d announce.

And Snape had to grit his teeth at his temerity. And how soft and round those buttocks were. How he could see the wrinkled sacs from behind and a sparse growth of hair along the side. And the golden brown skin. And how he wanted to part those cheeks and press his nose between the crack and breathe him in deeply, and flick out his tongue at that audacious dusky pink hole that kept winking at him and taste –

“Stop leering, you Death Eater scum!” 

It was the longest three weeks of Snape’s life. And also the shortest.

*

“So, you and Sirius Black,” Snape muttered as he poured the last drops of the potion around his slick fingers.

“Nngggh… mmm,” Lupin groaned. “What about Sirius?”

“So, you used to do this with him…” Snape _knew_ the mangy werewolf was making him say it, when he knew beyond doubt what Snape was hinting at. “When you were… you both were… you… ” He felt his face flush. He didn’t think he could get any redder.

“Are you asking me if Sirius and I used to engage in a physical, sexually pleasurable relationship at Hogwarts, or if Sirius treated me for lycanthropy by rubbing a potion in my anus?”

“And we can see _RIGHT_ through your schemes, you scum!” Sirius Black shouted.

“It’s _pleasurable_?” Snape squeaked. He should drink something, but his hands were covered in potion. He wasn’t even going to think about the “sexual” bit.

“No,” Lupin said, and Snape felt something drop in his stomach.

“Right.”

“I meant, no, to both of your questions.”

Why that cheeky werewolf! He was just begging for a – 

“Ow!” Lupin yelped. “Did you just _spank_ me, Severus?”

“Abuse! Abuse!” Black shouted.

Why, so he did. And that felt so satisfying. After all he’d been through. Snape smiled and smacked him again, while not ceasing to twist his slippery fingers.

“Nnnnggghhh!”

Snape felt better than he had in weeks, watching the pink slowly fade from Lupin’s arse.

“Well, I’m glad you’re so comfortable with this, Severus,” Lupin said when he finally recovered from shivering and writhing. Black was bristling from the frame. “It’ll make the next stage much easier for both of us.”

Snape stopped smiling.

*

“Headmaster, I cannot do this,” Snape was so close to pleading.

Dumbledore sighed. “It’s been four weeks, Severus, that you’ve been working with him.”

“Working,” Snape sneered at the word.

“Working,” Dumbledore repeated sternly. “And to refuse this last stage, after all this time and effort.”

Snape was desperate. His honor was on the line. “But this is personal.”

“It’s always personal, Severus. The important things always are.”

“I mean, for _me_. Of my _person_.”

Dumbledore looked over his half-moon glasses, and Snape felt as angry and helpless and embarrassed as he had felt that time sitting in the Headmaster’s office after James Potter had saved his life. And just as hopeless.

“Would you let a bit of squeamishness get in the way of saving a man’s life, Severus?”

Snape sighed. Suckered again.

*

Snape insisted on removing Sirius Black’s portrait. That was one point he wasn’t budging on. Lupin agreed, but they soon found the portrait had a mind of its own. Much like that mongrel Black had. They could take it down from the wall, but they couldn’t take it out of the room, and they couldn’t turn it to face backwards.

“How did you move it in the first place?” Snape snarled at Lupin, who wiped the sweat from his brow. They’d been trying to pull the portrait out of the study for an hour now.

“He just came with me,” Lupin said, puzzled.

“And you’re not getting rid of me, Snivellus!” Black shouted from the frame. “You need someone to keep an eye on him, Moony! You can’t trust him!”

They both sighed. 

“I suppose, we’ll have a chaperone then,” Lupin said.

This was going to take forever.

Then, Snape was going to find a ditch and lie down in it until a nice thick layer of natural sediment covered him up, and dinosaurs walked the earth again.

*

“Mmmm… nnnnggh.” Snape had started gritting his teeth and swallowing his breath about a lifetime ago, but it was hard to stay quiet with Lupin’s mouth around his prick, his tongue licking along a vein throbbing so hard, Snape could feel it in his chest. And then he stopped feeling anything but his prick, when Lupin sucked him in. Deep.

“Nnnnggg…”

“Is something the matter, Severus?” Lupin sat back on his heels and looked up at him. His mouth was pink and swollen. At least he didn’t have that atrocious mustache anymore. 

“No!” Snape almost shouted. The cheek of that animal! At least his hands were still stroking him.

Lupin smiled and leaned in to take him in, his tongue lapping and licking, making wet slurping noises, and Snape pushed, pushed into him, hitting the back of his throat, and he felt his fingers twist around Lupin’s long brown hair, and he tried not to pull, not to fuck that mouth, but he needed to, and he did.

Just as he felt his breath hitch, Lupin pulled away and stuck a paper cup under his prick, and Snape could have wept. Lupin’s hands were still on him, milking him to his last drop, but he couldn’t look at anything but the intense look of concentration in Lupin’s mild brown eyes, and that swollen mouth, and he wanted to kiss it. After all their invasion of privacy and acts of indecency, he hadn’t even kissed him, and…

“Well, that will do, Severus,” Lupin said brightly and patted his knee. “Shall we add it to the second potion, then? The “human” element to counter the werewolf?”

Snape couldn’t feel his legs. This was work. Work. “I… I… Just let me… ” He hadn’t stuttered since he was a child.

“Oh, of course,” Lupin said. “Give you time to recover. How thoughtless of me.”

He put the paper cup on the desk and looked down at his hand. “I should go wash up,” he said.

Snape nodded and fell back in his chair. He didn’t notice Lupin licking his fingers.

*

And six weeks after the whole embarrassing project had started, it was suddenly over. Lupin shook his hand and thanked him for his patience and hard work. Hard, ha! That stupid werewolf. Rubbing it in as always. Rubbing. Oh, for Merlin. He was ruined now. Everything reminded Snape of his distasteful work, and now it was gone. Lupin was gone, with nothing but a tin of chocolate covered biscuits as a thank you present to remind Snape of… what they didn’t have. Snape even missed the teenaged Sirius Black shouting vulgarities at him from his portrait. 

That was it. A clear sign of his breakdown. Missing Sirius Black, indeed! 

So he went to the Headmaster and asked, nay, demanded two months’ vacation. In the middle of the term. It was to the Headmaster’s credit that he did not flinch under Snape’s darkest glower. But he gave in with a murmur.

In the middle of May, with students’ essays to grade, projects to supervise, and classes to teach, Severus Snape, off and left Hogwarts for Greenland. He’d always wanted to visit. It sounded so quiet and peaceful and clean.

And he took a long-overdue vacation from the wizarding world, or the human world in general, to recover his peace of mind. And the tatters of his dignity.

After the Dark Lord, and war, and teaching, and _that thing_ he had to do with Lupin, maybe it still wasn’t too late for him.

*  
His rooms were just the way he’d left them when Snape returned in the middle of a sweltering Scottish July. He already missed the cool, clean breeze of Greenland. Maybe he’d go back, pack a couple of books, and extra set of robes, and take an extended vacation again. The term was over, anyway, and he had four more weeks until he had to prepare for the Fall term. Snape didn’t know why he’d come back early. Greenland was beautiful, just as he had imagined, and he’d found a new strain of azalea that would work nicely with a new potion he had in mind. But something had been missing. He wouldn’t dwell on it.

He found the books he’d wanted and was about to Floo back to central London, when he heard a knock on his door.

“Come in,” he called out wearily. He supposed he couldn’t sneak in without someone catching him at it. And to think he used to be a spy, too.

A messy brown head poked in. It was Lupin. “There now, I thought I’d heard someone in here.”

“These _are_ my rooms, Lupin,” he snarled. He couldn’t bear to look at his tranquil face. Of course, nothing bothered _him_. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“The headmaster asked me to teach next term,” Lupin said calmly, sitting down on Snape’s favorite armchair. He gathered his robes on his lap primly. “But things have taken a strange turn and –”

“Did it not work, then?” Snape asked sharply. He didn’t know why he wasn’t more disappointed. Rather light-headed and hopeful, in fact.

“No, no,” Lupin shook his head. “It worked. I haven’t turned in two months.”

Snape shrugged irritably. That was that then. “So, what is it?” 

Lupin was grasping and ungrasping his robes. He looked nervous, but Snape couldn’t be certain.

“I… well… that is… ”

“What?!” 

“There is an interesting side-effect to the potion.” Lupin’s cheeks were flushed. “I… I seem to be … uh…I suppose that’s only to be expected in retrospect, considering the ambiguously worded directions. I mean, they did say the renascence of the human to defeat the wolf, and, well…”

“What is it?” Snape yelled at him. He wasn’t dying was he?

Lupin looked up and tried to grin, but it faltered around his lips.

“I’m pregnant.”

Snape’s knees gave way under him, and the next moment he saw Lupin looking down at him, concern and amusement in his eyes.

“Well, Severus, I never knew you for the fainting type.” He laughed nervously. “Why don’t I get you some water?”

Snape reached up and pulled Lupin down to him, to meet lips with lips, to feel that soft mouth with his tongue for the first time.

“I suppose we’ll get married then,” Snape said brusquely as he sat up. Lupin stared at him, mouth hanging open. It was his turn to be the dazed one. 

“I _am_ the father, I presume?” Snape raised an eyebrow.

“The one and only,” Lupin said finally. 

Snape felt inordinately pleased at how he’d turned the world’s mistakes, the Dark Lord’s foolish experiment, young Malfoy’s bumbling, Dumbledore’s interference, Sirius Black’s ranting, and even Lupin’s annoying good cheer, and have something work out for the best. 

“We’re not inviting that portrait,” Snape growled. “And I don’t want him in that study.” Not with that lovely red ottoman in there.

Lupin smiled at him. 

“I’ll coax him downstairs. He can hang next to his mother.”


End file.
